Tracking fitness goals in the New Year with iPhone and Apple Watch

No matter your goals, staying focused on a fitness regimen doesn’t have to be a daunting task. Luckily, Apple’s App Store has just the apps that can help you hit your fitness goals. Armed with an iPhone in hand or an Apple Watch on the wrist, you can make your fitness New Year’s Resolutions a new habit.

Starting the new year with a focus on fitness usually means finding a new nutrition habit too. Until the Apple Watch offers native nutrition tracking, there are plenty of viable options in the App Store.

MyFitnessPal is a highly rated calorie counter thanks to its vast food database. That means less time manually inputting nutritional data, and more time understanding how the food impacts you.

LifeSum and LoseIt are two calorie counting contenders that have similar features to MyFitnessPal. LifeSum takes it a step further by packing in pre-made diets and recipes to help reach nutrition goals.

Guided Runs in Nike Run Club are a great way to get motivated, even as a beginner. Each Guided Run is voiced by a Nike coach, instructing you each step of the way. Having someone in your ears, coaching you along, can give you the extra bit of motivation you need to complete your workouts.

Strava and MapMyRun are great alternatives, each with their own benefits. Strava is multi-faceted and tracks both running and cycling exercises. MapMyRun’s route database can help you discover new paths to experience, so you never get bored.

Adding strength training to your fitness regimen is a great way to build and define muscle. Easy to follow, and trackable, strength training routines are often delegated to pen and paper. Two apps that significantly improve on that are Strong and SmartGym. Both feature-rich apps help create habits to help you reach your goals.

Strong tracks strength training progression in visual charts to show just how much better you’re doing this week versus the last. SmartGym comes pre-populated with both workouts and images on how a movement is performed.

Strong and SmartGym both come with well-designed Apple Watch apps too. Instead of having to carry an iPhone around the gym, everything can be a tap away on your wrist.

Running and strength training may not be the only workouts you do. watchOS 4 on the Apple Watch Series 3 can track elliptical, rower, stair stepper, high-intensity interval training, and swimming workouts.

An “other” option exists that allows for custom workout names or picking from a list including yoga, barre, and skating. For those mountain-side snow days, Slopes tracks and shares skiing and snowboarding workouts.

All of the results from your workout data can be overwhelming to sift through. Workouts++ is a free app that not only includes a custom workout app, but statistical data on past workouts too.

In addition to using helpful apps, be sure to surround yourself with others who are similarly focused on fitness goals, who can help you stay positive and motivated. When I found myself alone in this fitness journey, I reached out via Twitter and started adding friends to the Apple Watch’s Activity Sharing feature. Having that group on my wrist at all times, made all the difference for me.

Zac Hall wrote about how he lost 50-pounds thanks in part to the Apple Watch as a motivator. Fitness and diet routines are nothing new in the world of New Year’s resolutions. But this can be the year that you stick to your goals by utilizing the tech you have on hand, tracking your results, and seeing your progress in the data and the mirror.

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